


Ephemeral

by Saucery



Series: Hartwin Stories [3]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Angst, Angsty Schmoop, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Crack, Creepy Fluff, Death, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub Undertones, Drama, Dreams vs. Reality, Eggsy Doesn't Mind, Explicit Sexual Content, Feels, Fix-It of Sorts, Ghost Sex, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Harry is a Pervy Ghost, Haunted Houses, Haunting, M/M, Masturbation, More Porny Than You Expect A Ghost Story To Be, Mutual Pining, Possession, Post-Canon, Post-Movie(s), Romance, Sexual Fantasy, Spirit World, Spirits, Supernatural Elements, Surreal, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 14:48:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3573653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eggsy is haunted by Harry. Quite literally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ephemeral

**Author's Note:**

> Just like [Tiny Dancer](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3508997/chapters/7713806), this story will be posted as a series of short scenes, largely because I’m writing them during my lunch-breaks and will post them as I write them.

* * *

 

Eggsy paid it no mind, at first. He was living in Harry’s home, after all, complete with Harry’s collection of fine liquor, his equally thorough collection of encryption machines, and the downright eerie portrait of Mr. Pickles that graced the landing of the grand staircase.

It would be strange if Eggsy _didn’t_ feel Harry’s presence in this over-decorated mausoleum. His colleagues uniformly thought Eggsy was a bit odd to be living in a dead man’s house; the Kingsmen had offered Eggsy his own accommodation, a respectable flat in the center of London, but Eggsy had declined.

No, it didn’t bother Eggsy that he sometimes felt as if Harry was watching over him. It was even comforting, in a bittersweet way, and if Eggsy often spent hours sitting in front of the cold fireplace, staring into its ashes and sipping Harry’s favorite whisky, then that was his business, and nobody else’s.

It was only when Eggsy woke one morning to find the coffee maker already on that it began to occur to him that Harry’s haunting of him may be more literal than metaphorical.

Eggsy paused at the entrance to the kitchen, where the blessed scent of caffeine was wafting from, and blinked blearily at the coffee maker. Usually, he switched it on immediately after awakening, so his coffee would be ready for him once he’d bathed and changed, but it had apparently taken its activation upon itself. Which was… peculiar.

Still, it could just be a malfunction, albeit a perfectly-timed one, so Eggsy disregarded it and instead chose to remember how the coffee maker had been a relatively recent purchase, Harry’s concession to Eggsy’s preference for coffee over tea. They hadn’t been a couple, but it was concessions like those that had made Eggsy believe they could be, that had made him hope—

It didn’t matter what he’d hoped.

And that was how Eggsy initially dismissed the Coffee Incident, as he would soon call it.

Until it was followed by the Lightbulb Incident.

That weekend, Eggsy had no missions and no debriefings, and as a result, he planned to sleep in, and did what he frequently did the night before he slept in—he lay in bed and wanked, with the lights on low. He was wearing Harry’s silky red nightgown, which still smelled of Harry, and Eggsy pressed the right sleeve against his mouth, inhaling, tasting, his eyes dipping closed. He lifted a leg and let it fall to the side, the gown falling open along with it, baring him. He worked his cock slowly, imagining Harry holding him down and stroking him, teasing him, whispering filthy words in his ear. For a moment, the whispers seemed almost _real_ , and Eggsy gasped, arching, coming all over his white-knuckled fist.

The bulb overhead exploded.

Eggsy sat up with a jolt, panting, peering incredulously at the ceiling. The bulb in the middle of the chandelier had shattered into a glittery dust, the crystals of the chandelier swinging and clinking against each other.

That—that couldn’t be a simple blown fuse. Could it?

Shivering as his sweat cooled, Eggsy drew the gown tighter around himself. He wondered if it was just him, or if the temperature of the bedroom had dropped by several degrees. Generally, the warmth and lassitude of orgasm lasted longer than this. Or perhaps the suddenness of that exploding bulb had robbed him of his afterglow. Sodding technology.

If it was technology.

Great. Eggsy had finally succumbed to madness, and was entertaining wild delusions. At this rate, he would have to see the resident Kingsman counselor like Merlin had been insinuating he should.

Ignoring his misgivings—which were ridiculous, he was being _ridiculous_ —Eggsy headed for the bathroom, shrugging off the gown so that it pooled around his ankles, licking his come-slick fingers clean. But when he stepped into the shower and reached for the knobs, they were freezing. He snatched his hand back, hissing, and gawked at the shower’s glass door, which was… frosting over.

Eggsy stumbled backward, and when he caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror, he saw not only his reflection, but something a lot like mist, a barely visible blurring of the air behind him.

“Jesus Christ,” Eggsy said, despite not being religious in the least. His heart pounded, and he felt—he wasn’t sure whether it was joy, or terror, or both. “You fucking _bastard_. You were here, from the start. You were here, and you let me—you let me think you were gone.”

The hot water knob creaked itself on, like a peace offering. Eggsy snorted, fighting a surge of dizziness that made him sag against the tiles, not entering the shower in spite of the steam that was heating up the space, making it more bearable. The steam also disguised whatever mistiness he’d seen in the mirror, and Eggsy was horrified by that, by how easily the signs of Harry being there were vanishing.

“Turn it off,” Eggsy mumbled, and then, when the shower kept going, he shouted: “Turn it off!”

The shower turned off, so abruptly that the pipes didn’t clunk like they ordinarily did.

“Fuck.” Eggsy couldn’t stop shaking. “Fuck.”

He wanted to be held, stupidly and uselessly, but obviously, that wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening. He was hallucinating. He was dreaming.

Eggsy slid to the floor, where he curled up on himself as the bathroom became chilly again, and then chillier, causing Eggsy’s fingertips to go blue. “Don’t you dare leave me alone,” he said, into the silence. “Don’t you…”

Harry, of course, didn’t listen. He was a stubborn arse, which meant that he _did_ leave, because there was an abrupt sense of emptiness, and the frost that had begun to reappear faded away.

He’d be back. He had to be. Ghosts needed energy to manifest, didn’t they? Harry might be recharging. Or whatever ghosts did when they weren’t actively haunting someone. Eggsy wracked his brain for all the silly—and probably inaccurate—urban myths he’d overheard in his life, before giving it up as a futile endeavor.

Harry hadn’t been like any other man Eggsy had ever known. He wouldn’t be like any other ghost, either.

Although it was summer, Eggsy extracted a sweater from the wardrobe—a wardrobe that was still full of Harry’s clothes—and tucked himself in with it when he went to bed. Just in case Harry came back. Which he would. He _would_. Even if he wasn’t real. At this point, Eggsy didn’t care if he wasn’t.

It took Eggsy ages to succumb to sleep.

 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Harry visits Eggsy in his dreams, and they have an actual conversation. For definitions of “actual” that aren’t, er, actual.

**Author's Note:**

> Like my writing? Want updates and sneak previews? Follow me on [Tumblr](http://saucefactory.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
